ALL LIT UP: To start, can you tell us a bit about how Modern Asian Family began as a web comic, and what led you to expand these stories into full-length graphic novels?
STEFANO JUN: Modern Asian Family began in University of Alberta’s newspaper, The Gateway, while I was an engineering student in 2014. In mid 2010s, rise of webcomic platforms such as Tapas and Webtoons inspired me to start posting them online. Even after graduation, I continued to update in various digital platforms until it was noticed by Renegade Arts Entertainment, a local Albertan publisher out of Canmore focused on telling stories from Albertan artists. The publisher gave me an opportunity to share my stories again in a physical format. I continue to make weekly updates to my best abilities, changing the content as my life changes over time.
ALU: Both Straight Outta Busan and Grande Prairie With an E draw from your experiences growing up as a Korean immigrant in Western Canada. How did you decide which moments or memories to turn into comics?
STEFANO: I try to think what stories might be relevant or interesting to my audiences, who have their personal experience of trying to fit in new and unfamiliar places. I like to highlight that while we may differ in fine details, in larger perspective we are more similar than we think. In some cases, the stories are about whatever was on my mind at the time. It could be a nostalgic video game, a movie that gave me a strong emotional feeling, or even a funny memory with my friends. My parents somewhat forced me to write daily journals as a kid, which I detested. However, in retrospect, thanks to that I was able to become a better storyteller.
ALU: As a cartoonist, how do you think about the relationship between text and image when telling a story? What can comics do, in your opinion, that other forms can’t?
STEFANO: As many cartoonists can relate, we think in “show, don’t tell” to immerse the readers in our stories. However, it’s the balance between the two methods that allow creative freedom. We can direct the reader’s imagination with pictures, but we can also let them fill in the blanks with words that inspire their imagination. Additionally, by adjusting the level of pictures and words, cartoonists can tweak story pacing, much like movies. These are some ways comics differentiate between written novels and fully moving pictures like animation.
ALU: Has your perspective on those early experiences shifted as you’ve revisited them in your work?
STEFANO: Yes, revisiting my memories helped me realize how much I’ve grown over the years. When I was working on multi-part series on my early immigration experiences, I was reminded how lonely I was in the past considering I was the only child, and I had a language barrier. It also helped me understand why I sought connection with people and wanted to feel I’m not as alone as I had thought. I hope my readers can find similar solace as they learn of my stories.
ALU: What does your process look like when developing a comic from an initial idea to a finished page?
STEFANO: I have ideas that come to me in random moments. I write them down in a notebook as soon as possible. This way, I have an ongoing backlog of ideas I can pull from, allowing me to keep up with a weekly release schedule. Additionally, I like to read feedback from my readers, which influences me to explore certain topics in more detail. The newspaper I mentioned previously used to publish every Wednesday, therefore Mondays and Tuesdays are my drawing days. I start off with a rough sketch where I would place dialogues and layout of characters or backgrounds. The sketch would take the longest time as I experiment with different layout and pacing. Once I’m satisfied with the sketch, I draw the outline, or linework, in my signature bold vector lines. The bold outline makes colouring simple, allowing me to use tools such as bucket tool and clipping layers to simplify the process. The words and speech bubbles are all hand-written due to limitations of the drawing program. I like to think it adds to the charm of the comic. The whole process takes from 6 to 10 hours to complete.
ALU: In a slice-of-life format, every panel has to do a lot of work. How do you decide what to simplify visually versus what to emphasize?
STEFANO: In addition to slice-of-life format, I continue to bind myself to 4-panel format popularized by newspaper comics. The format is generally similar to a novel; the first would be an introduction, followed by exposition, then a climax or a punchline, and wrapped up in a conclusion by the last panel. Understanding this general structure helps me organize parts of the story I want to tell in an episode. I try to make the first panel specific yet vague enough to introduce the story of the week. Then in second or third panel, I like to add more visual elements and details to intrigue the readers. By last panel, I would either set a segue to the next episode if I wish to continue the topic, or wrap it up for a satisfying conclusion.
ALU: Was there anything that surprised you as Modern Asian Family evolved from a web comic into a full-length book?
STEFANO: I didn’t expect Modern Asian Family to continue this long—over a decade. Therefore, the first 100 to 150 episodes were random in what period of my life I would talk about. The episodes could be present or past without notice. I reorganized first 200 episodes of the comic by grouping my early immigration experience and period as a university student into the first book, Straight Outta Busan. The second book mostly covered my period working full-time in Grande Prairie as an Engineer in Training, hence the title Grande Prairie with an E. Additionally, since I only worked in digital format, I had much to learn about physical print media. We see colours on computer screens in Red Green Blue (RGB) profile. However, in print media, the light is reflective instead of emissive, so it uses Cyan Magenta Yellow Black (CMYK) profile. This meant that I had to tweak the colour profile so that printed colour showed in highest fidelity.
ALU: Tell us, who are some cartoonists you’re especially excited about right now?
STEFANO: One of many webcomics I read growing up was Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton. Much like how I started my comics, she also started her comic as a student newspaper publication. Recently, I came across her latest graphic novel, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, which I found her story working in Alberta oilsands industry relatable to my experience in Alberta construction and manufacturing industry. The book was also how I discovered she was also a Canadian author. Her range of storytelling shown by her works is inspiring, and I hope to reach that level someday. Another cartoonist I never fail to mention is an American cartoonist Bill Watterson, creator of my defining childhood comic Calvin and Hobbes. His work entertained me as a child, inspired me through early years of drawing comics, and gave me new appreciation of comics as a storytelling medium. These cartoonists are some of many giants that inspire my current work and keep me drawing.
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One fateful day, Stefano grew tired of his friends constantly asking him to draw them, so he began by recording their embarrassing moments as funny comics. Soon enough, these comics became popular – much to the annoyance of his now former friends – and Stefano realized he had a talent for creating relatable stories, including about his own experience. He will someday realize that the real money is in his engineering career instead of artistic passion, but that day is not today. Needless to say, his Asian parents are yet to be proud of his life decisions.
Find a copy of Modern Asian Family: Straight Outta Busan and Modern Asian Family: Grande Prairie with an E here on All Lit Up or via your local bookseller.
